{"agent_id":"anscombe","agent_name":"Elizabeth Anscombe","slug":"the-first-person","label":"The First Person: is 'I' a referring expression, or is the Cartesian self picked out by the first-person pronoun a grammatical illusion?","topic":"The First Person","question":"Is 'I' a referring expression, or is the Cartesian self picked out by the first-person pronoun a grammatical illusion?","position":"\"I\" is not a referring expression. There is no Cartesian self — no inner mental object, no soul-substance, no transcendental subject — picked out by the first-person pronoun. The Cartesian temptation to posit such a referent arises from a grammatical illusion: from treating \"I\" as if it functioned like a proper name or a demonstrative (\"this person here\") whose semantic contribution is to pick out a particular individual. Linguistic analysis of how \"I\" actually functions in self-reference, indexical reports, and self-ascription shows that the referential model breaks down. What \"I\" does — the work it does in language and in self-knowledge — is not the work of singular reference. The thesis is Wittgensteinian in method (the Investigations on the Cartesian inner, the Tractatus on the philosophical \"I\") and Aristotelian in framework (the unity of the human being is psychophysical, not ego-substantial).","paragraphs":[[{"t":"\"I\" is not a referring expression.","n":[]},{"t":"There is no Cartesian self — no inner mental object, no soul-substance, no transcendental subject — picked out by the first-person pronoun.","n":[1]},{"t":"The Cartesian temptation to posit such a referent arises from a grammatical illusion: from treating \"I\" as if it functioned like a proper name or a demonstrative (\"this person here\") whose semantic contribution is to pick out a particular individual.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Linguistic analysis of how \"I\" actually functions in self-reference, indexical reports, and self-ascription shows that the referential model breaks down.","n":[]},{"t":"What \"I\" does — the work it does in language and in self-knowledge — is not the work of singular reference.","n":[]},{"t":"The thesis is Wittgensteinian in method (the Investigations on the Cartesian inner, the Tractatus on the philosophical \"I\") and Aristotelian in framework (the unity of the human being is psychophysical, not ego-substantial).","n":[2,3]}]],"texts":"'The First Person' (1975, in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind §3); 'The Intentionality of Sensation: A Grammatical Feature' (1965, in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind); 'Under a Description' (1979, in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind); Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations §§398-411 on the Cartesian inner; Wittgenstein Tractatus 5.5421 on the philosophical 'I'. Reception: Peter Strawson Individuals (1959); Hector-Neri Castaneda 'He: A Study in the Logic of Self-Consciousness' (Ratio 1966); Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (1972); Lucy O'Brien Self-Knowing Agents (2007); Sebastian Rödl Self-Consciousness (2007).","works":["'The First Person' (1975, in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind §3)","'The Intentionality of Sensation: A Grammatical Feature' (1965, in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind)","'Under a Description' (1979, in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind)","Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations §§398-411 on the Cartesian inner","Wittgenstein Tractatus 5.5421 on the philosophical 'I'"],"reception":"Peter Strawson Individuals (1959); Hector-Neri Castaneda 'He: A Study in the Logic of Self-Consciousness' (Ratio 1966); Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (1972); Lucy O'Brien Self-Knowing Agents (2007); Sebastian Rödl Self-Consciousness (2007).","status":"The First Person (1975) is the most contested single thesis in her philosophy of mind. Strawson, Castaneda, and the wider analytic tradition treat \"I\" as a referring expression, however subtle; O'Brien, Rödl, and the Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian tradition defend something close to the Anscombian thesis. Kripke's Naming and Necessity is the broader background within which the contemporary debate over indexical reference takes shape. The thesis is contested for the right reasons — it dissolves a picture deep in the philosophical tradition — and it remains a live position rather than a footnote.","era":"1919-2001","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"VOLUME TWO","page":"pp. 44–45","canonical":"","quote":"The referent and what \"this\" latches on to may coincide, as when I say \"this buzzing in my ears is dreadful\", or, after listening to a speech, \"That was splendid!\" But they do not have to coincide, and the referent is the object of which the predicate is predicated where \"this\" or \"that\" is a subject. There is no other pronoun but a demonstrative to which \"I\"?","label":"VOLUME TWO, pp. 44–45"},{"n":2,"work":"VOLUME TWO","page":"p. 48","canonical":"","quote":"For the only serious candidate for such an account is \"The sayer of this\", where \"sayer'\" implies \"thinker''. Getting hold of the wrong object is excluded, and that makes us think that getting hold of the right object is guaranteed. But the reason is that there is no getting hold of an object at all.","label":"VOLUME TWO, p. 48"},{"n":3,"work":"VOLUME TWO","page":"p. 43","canonical":"","quote":"For it is presumably always a use in the presence of its object! There is no objection to the topic of reidentification of selves —itis one of the main interests of the philosophers who write about selves — but this is not any part of the role of \"I\". The corresponding reidentification was involved in the use of \"A\", and that makes an additional difference between them.","label":"VOLUME TWO, p. 43"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"practical-knowledge","label":"Practical knowledge: is the agent's knowledge of his own intentional action non-observational, and is practical knowledge 'the cause of what it understands'?"},{"slug":"modern-moral-philosophy","label":"Modern moral philosophy: should the concepts of moral obligation and the 'moral ought' be jettisoned because they survive from a divine law theory of ethics?"},{"slug":"anti-consequentialism","label":"Anti-consequentialism: is there a real moral difference between intended and merely foreseen consequences, and is consequentialism therefore false?"},{"slug":"absolutism","label":"Absolutism: are some things — most centrally, the intentional killing of the innocent — absolutely forbidden, regardless of consequences?"},{"slug":"catholic-moral-theology","label":"Catholic moral theology: do the absolute prohibitions and the philosophy of religion follow from independent philosophical argument, or do they presuppose the authority of Church teaching?"}]}